Mikhail Kalashnikov “knew how to dream, to follow his dream in spite of everything and to work selflessly”

The Presidential Library hosted a cinema club meeting dedicated to the centenary anniversary of Mikhail Kalashnikov. The event was co-organized by the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineers and Signal Corps. At the end of watching the film by Rasim Poloskin “Kalashnikov. A Man and an Assault Rifle”, the meeting participants, mainly cadets of military schools, talked about creating a unique “kalash” and a non-standard personality of its designer.

Addressing the audience of the Presidential Library, Ruslan Chumak - a reserve colonel, candidate of technical sciences, chief curator of the weapons funds of the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineers and Signal Corps, a permanent author and member of the editorial board of Kalashnikov magazine, author of publications and books on the history of Russian expressed his opinion in this way: “To be able to dream, to follow the dream in spite of everything and to work selflessly - this is the property of the personality of Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov that I would especially like to emphasize. He could die in the war. He experienced what it means to be a member of the "dispossessed and exiled" family. He, the undereducated peasant son, competed in the design of weapons with professionally trained engineers. And there were many such people, talented Russian nuggets, in aviation, and in the navy, and in artillery. And this means that each of you, while young cadets, can also rise to the heights of the human spirit and professional success!”  

Poloskin's film is a detailed interview with the designer of the world-famous AK-47.

It is about the immensity of the human soul, about the talent of an inventor who can prove himself in the most unexpected circumstances, and about the strength of the human spirit, which is stronger than any weapon.

Mikhail was the seventeenth child born in the Kalashnikov family. At school age, he was engaged in the invention of the perpetual motion machine and approached this dream so much that the physics teacher began respectfully calling him by his first name and patronymic. And then there was the moving of the family to Siberia, to the Taiga station. Father, unable to withstand a long journey, died of consumption.

When the Great Patriotic War broke out, the very young Mikhail volunteered for the front. He was greatly shell-shocked during a counterattack near Bryansk and miraculously survived. Then the wounded Soviet soldier, who fought against a formidable enemy with a rifle, was visited in the hospital by the idea of ​​creating weapons superior to the German Schmeissers. And he created an assault rifle!..

The first modification of the famous submachine gun, which Mikhail Timofeevich sent in 1942 for examination in Moscow, was recognized as not the best example of a weapon. The sentence then, it would seem, was final: “The sample is not suitable for mass use!”.

But Kalashnikov would not be Kalashnikov if he surrendered. He began to comprehensively improve the model, based on the fact that most of the soldiers did not graduate from either schools or academies, and therefore, they needed a simple and convenient assault rifle. Kalashnikov constantly improved it, changing not only the design features of the model, but also achieving maximum convenience in use. Thus dozens of modifications he proposed were embodied, finally, in the final AK-47.

“I followed a difficult thorny path”, - says Mikhail Timofeevich in Poloskin’s film. - I have been beaten many times. And each time I took out from difficult situations something for a future victory”.

The AK-47 assault rifle, created by Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov, has become a weapon that has been turning the course of world history around the world over the second half of the 20th century. During the tests "kalash" was dipped into the water of polluted reservoirs, poured sand into the barrel, and he continued to shoot! Poloskin’s film gives an example: a sniper bullet got into the barrel of an AK-47 during a night battle, and the machine jammed. However, the fighter in a matter of minutes, by touch, in the dark, disassembled and assembled an extremely simple machine!..

The designer himself did not expect such a rapid advancement of his invention. He complains in the film: “AK was created exclusively to protect my Fatherland. And now it is used in many countries of the world - politicians, alas, have not yet learned how to prevent wars, and not to unleash them”.

Mikhail Kalashnikov himself always believed that weapons could save the world from a great war. The main thing is that it shoots as rarely as possible.